4 ms·

Noise in cities is primarily driven by cars. Densification if done right could even make things quieter (e g. Reduce stroads and have more bicycles)

ehnto 3y ago
Absolutely. Walking around Osaka, Tokyo etc, it's so incredibly quiet. Eventually you will come to a road and the difference is so obvious, you really feel how unpleasant roads are in a city. It's surprising how much a bit of distance helps too. Just a street back from a stroad and you're already much better off sound wise. We don't have to abandon roads just be smarter with where we put faster roads (50kmph+ is probably not what people think of as fast but I find that is when noise is at unpleasant levels to those on the street. As well, it's tires not exhaust noise causing the majority of noise) There are probably people reading this who like me thought nothing of road noise, no big deal, just a fact of life. But spaces are so much nicer without rushing cars on the majority of thoroughfares.
- ok_dad 3y ago
  I bought a house on one of two roads into my town and the difference between night (no cars) and day (lots of cars) is night and day. It’s so noisy during the day that I use headphones to watch tv, but at night it’s turned down to quite a low volume level. I chose this house, I’m not complaining, but I would enjoy a world with less to zero cars.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  Exactly; I live in Tokyo and even in areas with huge apartment blocks, it's very quiet, particularly at night. The only place it's noisy is near the highway (and even that isn't that noisy compared to American highways, because the speeds are significantly lower). It's one of the many reasons I moved here.
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
[flagged]
- StockHuman 3y ago
  “Stroad” is the urbanism aficionado portmanteau of street and road; a common feature in North American urban and suburban design where the speeds, (lack of) curves and lane-count of roads are combined with the traffic lights and access to businesses and homes of streets (and all their attendant car infrastructure).
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    Exactly, which is why I reject it as douchey, judgmental bullshit. We have terms for each type of thoroughfare in English already; they're seen on street signs and maps all over the USA.
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
Fortunately this goes away as more cars go electric. Next!
- midoridensha 3y ago
  Unfortunately, it doesn't change at all with electric cars, because most of the noise comes from tires, not engine exhaust. Next!
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    Some measurements: https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=609&feature=shared https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=609&feature=shared The noisiest vehicles in the centre of Copenhagen seem to be diesel delivery vans, so it's a decent improvement as these are swapped for electric ones.
    - stouset 3y ago
      The center of Copenhagen has very different traffic composition than essentially every American city.
      - Symbiote 3y ago
        The context was "densification if done right could even make things quieter", and Copenhagen — at least the centre and inner districts — is generally considered to be doing things right. Slowly driven electric cars are slightly quieter than slowly driven petrol/diesel cars, but the greater improvement is the slowly driven vans, trucks, refuse lorries and so on. (Especially the electric refuse lorries! No more loud diesel thing emptying bins at silly-in-the-morning.)
        stouset 3y ago
        > The context was "densification if done right could even make things quieter", and Copenhagen — at least the centre and inner districts — is generally considered to be doing things right. Which is precisely why their traffic composition is different than that of American cities. I absolutely believe that the lowest-hanging fruit in many of Copenhagen’s streets are diesel delivery trucks. I do not believe that American cities have adopted the kind of forward-thinking policies that would have reduced other sources of traffic noise to the point where those are the largest contributors.
pseudo0 3y ago
Road noise is mostly white noise when indoors, and reduced to nearly inaudible by good windows. The really disruptive noise is caused by increased density - the apartment above with a subwoofer or an exercise routine that involves dropping weights, kids running up and down the hall shrieking, stuff like that. Landlords are supposed to address issues like that, but getting them to handle noise issues can be very frustrating. Living in a detached house is incredibly quiet compared to dense apartment accomodations.
- jen20 3y ago
  This isn’t really a problem in modern buildings built from concrete to condo specs. It just happens that most dense US cities have much older buildings, or that people put up with low quality buildings built to rental specs because landlords are allowed to get away with it.
  - extra88 3y ago
    Concrete can be isolating between floors but it's common even for "luxury" construction to cheap out on build materials in walls, allowing way too much sound between units and between units and common hallways.
    - jen20 3y ago
      Perhaps so - but that's a function of what people put up with and buy anyway, rather than a defining feature. The building I lived in until recently did not have this problem.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Our community features a dedicated gym on-site, so it would hopefully be easy to convince the exercising neighbor to take it where it belongs!
  - pseudo0 3y ago
    You would think... During COVID I discovered that my upstairs neighbor had a regular aerobics time that apparently involved jumping or skipping or something. Weekday mornings, like clockwork, despite having a gym in the building. There are definitely advantages to living in a condo or apartment, but the reality is that living in close proximity to a bunch of other people is going to be noisier. New condos tend to be better, but impact noise in particular still carries to adjacent units. Same with noise carrying from common areas like hallways.
pandaman 3y ago
This is a claim from one of the militant urbanist YouTube channels. The method used to establish that was using a microphone next to a road. The issue is that people don't care about the noise on the street nearly as much as they do about the noise inside their dwelling. And car noise doesn't make it inside the houses while people noise does, and, with the dense housing, often originated in the same building. And a microphone outside an apartment complex will indeed fail to record e.g. a fitness enthusiast on top of your bedroom setting an emergency lifting reps record at 3:30 am.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Noise caused by residents of high-density housing is typically well-regulated by community standards and peer pressure. Eight years ago, when I was touring a model unit, I asked the landlady if it was quiet here, and she said yes, other than people coming home from work. And this has proven true. 95% of the time is it peaceful, quiet, and idyllic. I live in very close proximity to 100 other families encircling a courtyard. I often hear swimmers in the pool, but I seldom hear loud amplified music, fights, dogs unduly barking at nothing, or other disturbing noises. I live in a college town, but I do not live in a college community. As such, the city has rather strict and extensive ordinances against noise, such as that generated by parties. Therefore, both the landlady and law enforcement are on our side if we ever have trouble with noisy neighbors. I don't know how it is in other cities. I've heard from friends who lived in Manhattan that sometimes the noise was intolerable, but nothing could be done about it. Perhaps if neighbors don't care about neighbors, that's what happens. We have yet to progress to such anarchy around here, fortunately.
- jjj123 3y ago
  “And car noise doesn't make it inside the houses” Oh really? I’m sitting inside my apartment listening to car noise right now. Our apartment sits away from the street too, probably 150ft away.
  - pandaman 3y ago
    I am sitting in my house 100 feet away from a 4 lane divided street and don't hear a thing.
glimshe 3y ago
Having lived in super high density for 25+ years, this is really not true. Sounds like you don't have a lot of personal experience with that. Yes, "cars" are noisy and are a part of the noisescape in dense cities, but it's much worse to deal with public transportation (buses), dogs, people getting back home at night, workouts, remodeling, loud music, airplanes (high density areas often have at least one nearby airport), people fighting, sports celebration etc etc. I live in car-ridden Suburbia now. When my relatives from the dense city visit, they are blown away by the silence. Maybe things are different in Japan, but everything is different in Japan.

ehnto 3y ago

Absolutely. Walking around Osaka, Tokyo etc, it's so incredibly quiet. Eventually you will come to a road and the difference is so obvious, you really feel how unpleasant roads are in a city. It's surprising how much a bit of distance helps too. Just a street back from a stroad and you're already much better off sound wise. We don't have to abandon roads just be smarter with where we put faster roads (50kmph+ is probably not what people think of as fast but I find that is when noise is at unpleasant levels to those on the street. As well, it's tires not exhaust noise causing the majority of noise) There are probably people reading this who like me thought nothing of road noise, no big deal, just a fact of life. But spaces are so much nicer without rushing cars on the majority of thoroughfares.

ok_dad 3y ago
I bought a house on one of two roads into my town and the difference between night (no cars) and day (lots of cars) is night and day. It’s so noisy during the day that I use headphones to watch tv, but at night it’s turned down to quite a low volume level. I chose this house, I’m not complaining, but I would enjoy a world with less to zero cars.
midoridensha 3y ago
Exactly; I live in Tokyo and even in areas with huge apartment blocks, it's very quiet, particularly at night. The only place it's noisy is near the highway (and even that isn't that noisy compared to American highways, because the speeds are significantly lower). It's one of the many reasons I moved here.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

[flagged]

StockHuman 3y ago
“Stroad” is the urbanism aficionado portmanteau of street and road; a common feature in North American urban and suburban design where the speeds, (lack of) curves and lane-count of roads are combined with the traffic lights and access to businesses and homes of streets (and all their attendant car infrastructure).
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  Exactly, which is why I reject it as douchey, judgmental bullshit. We have terms for each type of thoroughfare in English already; they're seen on street signs and maps all over the USA.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

Fortunately this goes away as more cars go electric. Next!

midoridensha 3y ago
Unfortunately, it doesn't change at all with electric cars, because most of the noise comes from tires, not engine exhaust. Next!
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Some measurements: https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=609&feature=shared https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=609&feature=shared The noisiest vehicles in the centre of Copenhagen seem to be diesel delivery vans, so it's a decent improvement as these are swapped for electric ones.
  - stouset 3y ago
    The center of Copenhagen has very different traffic composition than essentially every American city.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      The context was "densification if done right could even make things quieter", and Copenhagen — at least the centre and inner districts — is generally considered to be doing things right. Slowly driven electric cars are slightly quieter than slowly driven petrol/diesel cars, but the greater improvement is the slowly driven vans, trucks, refuse lorries and so on. (Especially the electric refuse lorries! No more loud diesel thing emptying bins at silly-in-the-morning.)
      - stouset 3y ago
        > The context was "densification if done right could even make things quieter", and Copenhagen — at least the centre and inner districts — is generally considered to be doing things right. Which is precisely why their traffic composition is different than that of American cities. I absolutely believe that the lowest-hanging fruit in many of Copenhagen’s streets are diesel delivery trucks. I do not believe that American cities have adopted the kind of forward-thinking policies that would have reduced other sources of traffic noise to the point where those are the largest contributors.

pseudo0 3y ago

Road noise is mostly white noise when indoors, and reduced to nearly inaudible by good windows. The really disruptive noise is caused by increased density - the apartment above with a subwoofer or an exercise routine that involves dropping weights, kids running up and down the hall shrieking, stuff like that. Landlords are supposed to address issues like that, but getting them to handle noise issues can be very frustrating. Living in a detached house is incredibly quiet compared to dense apartment accomodations.

jen20 3y ago
This isn’t really a problem in modern buildings built from concrete to condo specs. It just happens that most dense US cities have much older buildings, or that people put up with low quality buildings built to rental specs because landlords are allowed to get away with it.
- extra88 3y ago
  Concrete can be isolating between floors but it's common even for "luxury" construction to cheap out on build materials in walls, allowing way too much sound between units and between units and common hallways.
  - jen20 3y ago
    Perhaps so - but that's a function of what people put up with and buy anyway, rather than a defining feature. The building I lived in until recently did not have this problem.
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Our community features a dedicated gym on-site, so it would hopefully be easy to convince the exercising neighbor to take it where it belongs!
- pseudo0 3y ago
  You would think... During COVID I discovered that my upstairs neighbor had a regular aerobics time that apparently involved jumping or skipping or something. Weekday mornings, like clockwork, despite having a gym in the building. There are definitely advantages to living in a condo or apartment, but the reality is that living in close proximity to a bunch of other people is going to be noisier. New condos tend to be better, but impact noise in particular still carries to adjacent units. Same with noise carrying from common areas like hallways.

pandaman 3y ago

This is a claim from one of the militant urbanist YouTube channels. The method used to establish that was using a microphone next to a road. The issue is that people don't care about the noise on the street nearly as much as they do about the noise inside their dwelling. And car noise doesn't make it inside the houses while people noise does, and, with the dense housing, often originated in the same building. And a microphone outside an apartment complex will indeed fail to record e.g. a fitness enthusiast on top of your bedroom setting an emergency lifting reps record at 3:30 am.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Noise caused by residents of high-density housing is typically well-regulated by community standards and peer pressure. Eight years ago, when I was touring a model unit, I asked the landlady if it was quiet here, and she said yes, other than people coming home from work. And this has proven true. 95% of the time is it peaceful, quiet, and idyllic. I live in very close proximity to 100 other families encircling a courtyard. I often hear swimmers in the pool, but I seldom hear loud amplified music, fights, dogs unduly barking at nothing, or other disturbing noises. I live in a college town, but I do not live in a college community. As such, the city has rather strict and extensive ordinances against noise, such as that generated by parties. Therefore, both the landlady and law enforcement are on our side if we ever have trouble with noisy neighbors. I don't know how it is in other cities. I've heard from friends who lived in Manhattan that sometimes the noise was intolerable, but nothing could be done about it. Perhaps if neighbors don't care about neighbors, that's what happens. We have yet to progress to such anarchy around here, fortunately.
jjj123 3y ago
“And car noise doesn't make it inside the houses” Oh really? I’m sitting inside my apartment listening to car noise right now. Our apartment sits away from the street too, probably 150ft away.
- pandaman 3y ago
  I am sitting in my house 100 feet away from a 4 lane divided street and don't hear a thing.

glimshe 3y ago

Having lived in super high density for 25+ years, this is really not true. Sounds like you don't have a lot of personal experience with that. Yes, "cars" are noisy and are a part of the noisescape in dense cities, but it's much worse to deal with public transportation (buses), dogs, people getting back home at night, workouts, remodeling, loud music, airplanes (high density areas often have at least one nearby airport), people fighting, sports celebration etc etc. I live in car-ridden Suburbia now. When my relatives from the dense city visit, they are blown away by the silence. Maybe things are different in Japan, but everything is different in Japan.